24 3Ionograpk of the Cranes. 



female is conspicuously smaller. The feathers of the head are close, aad 

 commonly puffed up so as to increase remarkably the apparent size of the 

 head, imparting somewhat of a bladdery appearance to the surface, which 

 seems to distend more or less as the feathers are raised or depressed. 

 Plumage wholly of a soft leaden blue, with the exception of the upper part 

 of the head, which is white, and the ends of the long drooping tertiaries, 

 which are black ; the cheeks are whitish, passing into nigrescent on the 

 upper half of the neck and ear coverts, the latter being separated from the 

 white cap by a blackish line ; feathers of the lower back elongated ; irides 

 dusky; bill and legs black; length (as given by Mr. Layard) 4ft. 4in. ; of 

 wing to extremity of di-ooping plumes, oft. lOin. ; tail 14iu. According to 

 Chapman, this bird weighs 121b., and the expanse of its wings is about 7ft. 

 In the figure published in the Zoological Jouryial {he. cit.) the legs are 

 represented much too short, and the length of the drooping plumes is 

 exaggerated. In the young bird the head is white, inclusive of the cheeks 

 and throat, the somewhat lengthened tertiaries are brownish, and the flight 

 feathers dusky. The trachea of this species is figured and described by 

 Yarrell in "The Transactions of the Linnasan Society" (vol. xv., p. 380), 

 its convolutions are less developed than in most of the other species of 

 Grus. At the time Mr. Yarrell wrote the bird was considered somewhat, or 

 more than somewhat, of a rarity. He remarks : 



One example only of the rare bird above mentioned appears to have been brought 

 alive to this country [i.e., in 1827] ; and this specimen will be found described and 

 figured by Mr. Vigors in the second volume of the Zoological Journal (p. 234), under 



the name of Avtliropoides stanleyanus Possessing as this bird does to a great 



degree the external character of the Demoiselle, it also bears some resemblance to it in 

 its anatomical structure. The trachea, quitting the direction of the vertebrse of the 

 neck at the lower part, passes downward and backward between the branches of the 

 furcula till it reaches the anterior edge of the keel ; it then turns upwards into a groove 

 formed for its reception, and, being reflected forward and downward, traverses the 

 projecting portion of the sternum, and passes backward to the lungs. The furcula is 

 similar to that of the Demoiselle. Dr. Latham's figure of the sternum and trachea of 

 the common European Crane being referred to, and compared with the same parts in 

 the Demoiselle and the Stanley cranes, it will be perceived that the insertion of the 

 windpipe in the latter bird is upward, that of the Demoiselle principally backward, 

 while that of the Common Crane will be found to be a compound of both, combining 

 the upward inclination of the one with the backward insertioQ of the other ; and the 

 depth of this insertion within the keel appears to depend on the age of the bird rather 

 than the sex. In a very old female of the Common Crane, of which I prepared the 

 bones, the insertion is carried to the utmost extent that the size of the sternum will 

 admit. In a second specimen of a younger male bird, the insertion was not so deep as 

 in that last mentioned, but still much more so than in the sternum represented by Dr. 

 Latham ; and in the valuable and extensive collection of Joshua Brookes, Esq., there is 

 a sketch of the Common Crane— evidently a young bird by the state of the bones— in 

 which the insertion is not carried so far as in the representation alluded to ; but in a 

 male and female of the same age the greater depth of insertion may occur in the male, 

 as stated in Dr. Latham's paper. 



